‘Things didn’t come easily to me’
Brendan Fraser has completed his awards sweep, winning the best actor Oscar for The Whale.
Fraser beat out a field of contenders including Elvis’s Austin Butler and The Banshees of Inisherin’s Colin Farrell at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday night.
The actor has been on a career-redefining, statue-collecting journey this awards season for his performance as a morbidly obese, reclusive English teacher who tries to restore his relationship with his teenage daughter. He had already won an award at TIFF, got a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, won at the SAGs, and took awards at any number of Critics’ Circles. He didn’t win the BAFTA or the Golden Globe but was nominated for both.
Accepting his award, Fraser couldn’t help but reel off a few deep sea metaphors: “I’m grateful to Darren (Aronofsky) for throwing me a creative lifetime and hauling me aboard the good ship The Whale,” Fraser said.
“It was written by Samuel D. Hunter who is our lighthouse. Gentlemen, you laid your whale-sized hearts bare so that we could see into your souls like no one else could do and it is my honour to be named alongside you in this category.”
He closed his speech by touching on his early years in the industry, saying: “I started in this business 30 years ago.
“Things didn’t come easily to me but there was a facility I didn’t appreciate at the time until it stopped.”
He finished by thanking his three sons and his “first mate”, wife Afton Smith.
The moment was a far cry from last year’s win, which saw Will Smith give an emotional acceptance speech after earning his first-ever Best Actor Oscar after slapping Chris Rock.
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